That’s how Ryllen celebrated his sixteenth birthday.
It was also one of the final days he spent in his mother’s suite.
Now, four months later, as the leading edge of the Kye-Do rings peered over the ocean’s western horizon and the boiling orange sun fell in the east, less than an hour from setting, Ryllen Jee battled traffic with abandon. He disregarded his mother’s warning and looked for a strategic opening in the tight, regulated lanes of the UpWay.
His rifter was a two-seater, its bubble feature and AI guidance web the product of his own modifications. He spent a month’s income on a phasic driver capable of welding the structural flaws that almost brought him down in his last encounter with an FD. He programmed an illegal exemption into the guidance web to detect FD signatures as well as an OutPass notifier in case he needed to make a quick escape onto the flat lanes of the city’s main boulevards. Tiny personal vehicles like his were allowed to intermingle at ground level with the traditional carriages and motorized rickshaws. FDs were not.
Ryllen was running late, and the UpWay was far more congested than he anticipated. Hundreds of blue Carbedyne nacelles, the power source for these vehicles, extended for kilometers in both directions. Why all the limos? The six-seat sedans? The personal Scrams? He expected the lanes to be clear as evening neared, everyone settling in for an early dine ahead of the big moment.
He studied his guidance web and tried to map the fastest route to OutPass 14, still three kilometers ahead. Frustrated by what he saw, Ryllen flipped his left wrist and glanced at the bicomm melded to his skin. He wanted to make the call; if Kai knew he’d be late, perhaps his roommate would stall for time.
Or maybe he’s tired of making excuses for me, Ryllen thought. Cud! If I miss this introduction, I’m as good as Kohlna feed.
His fear wasn’t far from the truth. Ryllen was barely employable. The family name didn’t help, but four months spent trying to work outside the safety net of his household produced a handful of disgusting, short-term gigs usually reserved for immos – the desperate illegals from the continent who tried to forge lives in the shadows of Pinchon. Everything else he owed to Kai Durin, who gave him a soft bed and two meals rent-free and asked for nothing beyond a brief, warm kiss each morning.
Kai was generous. Kai was suave. But Kai had an agenda, like anyone with a working brain. Ryllen knew Kai’s endgame. He sensed it every time Kai made him dinner. He heard the implication each time his eighteen-year-old roommate mentioned “special opportunities” or “the way without judgment.” Only a week ago, when Ryllen put the pieces together, did Kai almost reveal his hand.
“I wasn’t eavesdropping,” Ryllen said over breakfast of Kohlna cakes and spiced cabbage. “You were on the bicomm. I heard you mention Lan Chua.”
Kai folded his fish cake into the stringy cabbage, his permanently embedded half-smile giving away nothing.
“Everyone knows Lan Chua. Powerful man.”
Ryllen knew all too well. “Father warned me about him once, during the reprisals. Father died a few days after.”
“Are you suggesting …?”
“No, but they were rivals at Nantou. I don’t think they got along, even before independence. But I hear things about Lan Chua.”
“Such as?”
“That maybe he’s more than Executive Chairman of Discipline at Nantou. Kai, what do you know about the Green Sun?”
Kai chewed with a slow, purposeful rhythm, his artful smile undeterred. He wiped his lips with a napkin and returned it to his lap.
“Now there’s a mighty question, RJ. You first. Where did you hear this colorful name?”
“My last job. Sewer maintenance with a crew of immos. Said they had a friend hunted by the Green Sun. They’re more afraid of it than the immigration consort. They couldn’t believe I was in the dark. They said Green Sun was run by executives for the seamasters. It would make sense for an ECD like Lan Chua. No one would challenge him.”
“Interesting conjecture.” Kai pointed to Ryllen’s plate. “Are you going to eat your last cake?”
“I’m good. I’ll fill up on breadfruit. So?”
Kai stabbed at the cake with a fork and mumbled between bites.
“What do you think Green Sun does, RJ?”
“I hear different stories. Trackers. Collectors. Enforcers. Assassins.”
“Hmm. Sounds brutish. I heard they’re defending The Lagos. Still, I would think there’s opportunity, given the right connections.”
“Opportunity for someone like me, you think?”
Kai washed down his cake with infused mango juice.
“I’d have no idea, RJ. But I’m good at asking questions. Maybe I know someone who knows Lan Chua.”
Ryllen gambled with his next words, knowing they might be enough to end his rent-free holiday.
“Kai, are you Green Sun?”
Ryllen’s host almost let go of a full smile, baring teeth. Instead, he grabbed both plates and carried them to the steam wash. Kai spoke without turning around.
“You know I’m in love with you,” he said. “I’ve wanted to have you from the first night, RJ. But I can’t, and not because you might say no. Given a choice of tides, I think you’d prefer women. The real reason I can’t share your bed is because I’d have to reveal myself. It’s against the rules. I’d end up worse off than when you were sleeping outside in Umkau. It’s no accident you’ve never seen me undressed.”
Kai returned to the table, finished his mango juice, and studied Ryllen with a pensive stare.
“I like your braids,” he said. “But they need a flourish. I’m thinking of accents in rose and violet. Appropriate for Ascension, don’t you think?
